Face-to-face with the super-efficient silkworm

Spin, spin, spin, little silkworm. These chubby grubs take in thousands of times their weight in plants - mulberry leaves are a favourite meal - and churn out strands of fine silk that feed a billion-dollar industry.

They are only a few centimetres long, but silkworms can produce a thread of silk up to 900 metres long for their cocoons. In this picture, the silk worm is lit from below with blue and red lights to show off the thread of silk it is spinning.

Not only do silkworms produce stronger fibres than synthetic methods, they do it more efficiently. The Bombyx mori is a Chinese silkworm that produces its fine strands at room temperature with only water as a by-product. In contrast, human production of oil-based fibres requires high-temperature manufacturing and creates harmful waste.

(Image: 2011 OSG)

Silk experts at the University of Oxford worked with researchers at the University of Sheffield to compare the energy used in the formation of natural versus synthetic fibres, which they hope will allow them to find short cuts to smoother silk production.

"This is about being inspired by nature," says Oleksandr Mykhaylyk of the University of Sheffield. The researchers say that spinning fibres the way silkworms do could reduce the costs of fibre manufacturing by 90 per cent.